t there be no angularities of surface, of measure, but in
the name of the Beautiful do not deliver his exquisitely balanced
phrases with the jolting, balky eloquence of a cafe chantant singer.
The very balance and symmetry of the Chopin phraseology are internal;
it must be delivered in a flowing, waving manner, never square or hard,
yet with every accent showing like the supple muscles of an athlete
beneath his skin. Without the skeleton a musical composition is
flaccid, shapeless, weak and without character. Chopin's music needs a
rhythmic sense that to us, fed upon the few simple forms of the West,
seems almost abnormal. The Chopin rubato is rhythm liberated from its
scholastic bonds, but it does not mean anarchy, disorder. What makes
this popular misconception all the more singular is the freedom with
which the classics are now being interpreted. A Beethoven, and even a
Mozart symphony, no longer means a rigorous execution, in which the
measure is ruthlessly hammered out by the conductor, but the melodic
and emotional curve is followed and the tempo fluctuates. Why then is
Chopin singled out as the evil and solitary representative of a vicious
time-beat? Play him as you play Mendelssohn and your Chopin has
evaporated. Again play him lawlessly, with his accentual life
topsy-turvied, and he is no longer Chopin--his caricature only.
Pianists of Slavic descent alone understand the secret of the tempo
rubato.

I have read in a recently started German periodical that to
make the performance of Chopin's works pleasing it is
sufficient to play them with less precision of rhythm than the
music of other composers. I, on the contrary, do not know a
single phrase of Chopin's works--including even the freest
among them--in which the balloon of inspiration, as it moves
through the air, is not checked by an anchor of rhythm and
symmetry. Such passages as occur in the F minor Ballade, the B
flat minor Scherzo--the middle part--the F minor Prelude, and
even the A flat Impromptu, are not devoid of rhythm. The most
crooked recitative of the F minor Concerto, as can be easily
proved, has a fundamental rhythm not at all fantastic, and
which cannot be dispensed with when playing with orchestra.
... Chopin never overdoes fantasy, and is always restrained by
a pronounced aesthetical instinct. ... Everywhere the
simplicity of his poetical inspiration and his sobriety saves
us from extravagance and false pa